Are you on a special diet and about to take a cruise? There’s no doubt you’re wondering if you’re going to have trouble finding something to eat.
According to the CDC, about 17% of U.S. adults (translating to tens of millions of people) are on some type of diet in one form or another. Meanwhile, the list of different styles of eating — ranging from vegan to keto to paleo to vegetarian and more — seems to get longer by the year.
The good news is that almost no matter your diet, you should be able to eat (and eat well!) on your cruise. Here’s what to know.
Cruises Are Experts at Fulfilling (Nearly) Any Dining Request
First things first, a little perspective is a good idea when thinking about your diet on the cruise ship. About 15 million people take a cruise from North America each year, with millions more sailing from ports from Asia to Europe.
In other words, cruise lines serve not only millions of cruise passengers, but tens of millions of meals annually. No matter your diet or what you can or can’t eat, it’s almost guaranteed that the cruise line has seen it before and has it covered. When serving that many people, dietary issues come up constantly.
In fact, sit down in the dining room and once the waiter introduces themselves the next question is almost always if you have any allergies or dietary requirements they need to know about.
Bottom line: There’s little doubt that no matter how restrictive you are with food the cruise line has already seen it, but also they anticipate special diets.
Many Common Diets Are Already Covered in Menus
Given the number of meals they serve and the number of passengers, cruise lines put a lot of work into updating their menus across the entire ship. This includes bringing lots of trends you find on land to sea.
These days eating vegetarian or vegan, while not exactly common, are far from a rarity. Just like restaurants on land have offered more options for these sorts of diets, so too have cruise ships.
Head to the dining room and you’ll likely have a menu that shows a special designation for items that meet certain diets.
This menu from a Celebrity cruise tells you which items are gluten-free, vegetarian, no sugar added, and lactose-free:
And in buffets where you can pick and choose what you eat, making it the easiest place to match any sort of diet, we’ve noticed more ships featuring entire vegetarian sections.
On a personal note, my wife is a vegetarian and has sailed with me numerous times. Accommodating her on a cruise is so easy it’s not really an issue we think about. There’s always some sort of option no matter where we eat (although veggie burgers would a nice addition in grab-and-go spots) and she never goes hungry.
So if you have a fairly common restriction on your diet, it’s most likely that the ships already accommodate for it across the board.
Different Varieties Across the Ship Make it Easier to Eat Within Your Diet
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises to many first-time cruisers is the variety of food served onboard. You might imagine a cruise being nothing but things like steak, lobster, burgers, and buffet.
Modern ships have a huge variety of foods offered, however. In fact, the biggest ships can have 20 restaurants serving everything from Asian to Mexican, fine dining to grab-and-go items.
Traditionally certain food styles lend themselves to certain diets. For instance, someone that’s vegetarian likely wouldn’t want to eat at the steakhouse while someone following a paleo diet would love it.
So if you are following a certain diet, you can make a good start by selecting a food style that matches what you like to eat.
In addition, you can visit restaurants to view the menus or look them up on the ship’s app. There you can see if there are dishes that appeal to you — and match your diet — before making a decision on where to eat.
Still Worried? You Can Bring Food With You on the Ship
We’ve covered that cruise lines go out of their way to accommodate anything from gluten-free to vegan and everything in between.
But what if you have a restriction that isn’t common or what if you simply want to make sure you have something tasty even if you don’t like the options served on the ship?
In that case, you should know that as the ultimate fail-safe to have something you like, you are allowed to bring food onto the cruise ship.
There are restrictions on what’s allowed. All food brought on the ship needs to be pre-packaged and unopened. You aren’t allowed to bring aboard homemade items.
That means if you are on a keto diet and want to bring on some beef jerky, you can do so to help you stick to your diet. As well, if you have a special veggie or vegan snack, bringing it along may make it easier to always have something to snack on, especially outside of traditional meal times.
